Mikel Arteta has said whether or not William Saliba has a future at Arsenal once his loan spell at Nice finishes at the end of the season.
The French centre back joined up with the the Gunners squad in the summer of 2020 after a being loaned back to St. Etienne where Arsenal signed him from in 2019.
He was expected to make his breakthrough into the first this season, but instead was restricted only to under-23 appearances, while the likes of Shkodran Mustafi were given opportunities in the Europa League and Carabao Cup.
But now the 19-year-old has found himself in the midst of some controversy this week after quotes emerged saying that he felt he had been judged too quickly by the Gunners boss upon his arrival from St. Etienne last summer.
“It is clear that so much has changed in the last year,” Saliba told RMC.
“When I saw that the coach changed a lot changed for me too. In this year there has been a lot of change.
“He judged me on two-and-a-half matches. I would have liked for him to play me more. But he told me I wasn’t ready.
“I was waiting for him to give me a chance, but football is like that.”
These quotes out of context don't look great for Saliba who appears to be pushing his relationship with Arteta to the brink.
Many have perhaps sensationally assumed that this means his career with Arsenal will be over before it has even started come the end of this season.
However, in another interview the 19-year-old provided a more nuanced assessment of what has happened since he came to north London.
“Several things went wrong,” he told Telefoot.
“The first is that in 2019-20, Ligue 1 finished early, I was at home in isolation, barely running a kilometre. I didn’t have physical fitness.
“After I went back to Saint-Etienne, knowing that I could play the French Cup final a few weeks later. After two or three weeks, I couldn’t train with them as I did not know if I was going to play the final. The clubs were failing to find an agreement.
“Finally, in the end I went to Arsenal, but as they were finishing the Premier League, I trained on my own. A week and a half later, they went on holiday, so I was training on my own for another two weeks.
"They came back. There were two or three friendly matches — well, training alone does not replace matches… I played two and a half friendly games, I was physically knocked out, I was not up to speed.
“I thought the coach (Arteta) was going to make me continue so that I find my rhythm. He said I wasn’t ready, which is normal — after six months staying at home during the lockdown and then playing, I couldn’t be ready and I needed to continue to work.
"After, the coach said I wasn’t ready — it’s like that, it’s football.”
It doesn't exactly seem like Saliba and Arteta have a perfect working relationship right now, but from the second set of quotes there are definitely grounds for improvement.
It is worth remembering also that after the 19-year-old made his loan move to Nice at the start of January, that the Gunners boss signalled his intention to have Saliba back in his squad for next campaign.
"He will come back for pre-season and he will be with us," said the Spaniard.
"Hopefully he will come back after playing a number of games and his performance raising and his development progressing in the right way. That’s why we made that decision.
"I know that sometimes it’s difficult to explain or understand after the money that the club has spent trying to bring him in, to send him on loan.
"But a lot of things have happened to him he’s a long-term player for us and we need to protect him as well. And giving him three or four games is not enough.
"For him he needs much more than that, because what happened in the last 18 months, he’s been through some personal problems as well that we have to try to help him and stay as close as possible to him.
"And now he needs to play, play and play and enjoy his profession as well. And in order to do that I think we found the right club with him.
"He’s very happy to got there now. Hopefully he can enjoy his football and be ready for us for next season."
Arteta has previously signalled his intention to have a pool of 'four to five' centre backs to choose from within his defensive options.
Rob Holding, Gabriel and Pablo Mari are three who will definitely be in that group next campaign, but beyond that it's very much up in the air.
David Luiz 's contract expires at the end of this season, Mustafi and Sokratis have left the clube, while the futures' of Dinos Mavropanos and Calum Chambers are still uncertain.
It's clear to see that there is a pathway for Saliba into the Arsenal first team if he is able to keep up the form that saw him named Nice's player of the month during his first few weeks at the club.
